Buffer overflow in Window Maker (wmaker) 0.80.0 and earlier may allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a certain image file that is not properly handled when Window Maker uses width and height information to allocate a buffer.

Al Viro found a problem in the image handling code use in Window Maker, a popular NEXTSTEP like window manager. When creating an image it would allocate a buffer by multiplying the image width and height, but did not check for an overflow. This makes it possible to overflow the buffer. This could be exploited by using specially crafted image files (for example when previewing themes).

Al Viro discovered a vulnerability in the WindowMaker window manager.
A function used to load images, for example when configuring a new background image or previewing themes, contains a buffer overflow. The function calculates the amount of memory necessary to load the image by doing some multiplication but does not check the results of this multiplication, which may not fit into the destination variable, resulting in a buffer overflow when the image is loaded.

Updated packages are available to fix a vulnerability in Window Maker.

[Updated 06 Feb 2003] Fixed packages for Advanced Workstation 2.1 have been added.

[Updated 31 Mar 2003] New erratum packages are available to fix a bug in the original security patch.

[Updated 18 Jun 2003] The last update did not include the Advanced Workstation 2.1 packages, these have now been added back.

Window Maker is an X11 window manager that emulates the look and feel of the NeXTSTEP graphical user interface.

Al Viro found a buffer overflow in Window Maker 0.80.0 and earlier which may allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code through a certain image file that is not properly handled when Window Maker uses width and height information to allocate a buffer. A user can exploit this vulnerability, for example, by opening a malicious theme.

Users of Window Maker are advised to upgrade to these updated packages which contain a patch to correct this vulnerability.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
15027	Debian DSA-190-1 : wmaker - buffer overflow	Nessus	Debian Local Security Checks	high
13983	Mandrake Linux Security Advisory : WindowMaker (MDKSA-2002:085)	Nessus	Mandriva Local Security Checks	high
12350	RHEL 2.1 : WindowMaker (RHSA-2003:009)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	high

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2002-1277

critical

Tenable Plugins

high

high

high